CLOSE to 300 Muslim students armed with iron bars and sticks attacked a Christian boys’ school in northern Pakistan, reportedly in retaliation to French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s controversial drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

HIS words, along with a pointed reference to Article 25 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees religious freedom, is seen as a strong statement against fundamentalism and extremism here and in the U.S.

“Police have been calling the attacks ‘petty crimes’. The statue of Our Lady was toppled and the window pane broken. Rather than preserving the evidence at the crime scene, police seemed more keen to clean up everything,” Shankar told Newsline.

Pastor Kamlesh of Good News Prayer Centre in Madhav Nagar area of Jehanabad district in Bihar who was assaulted by Bajrang Dal activists on Jan 11 in a daring attack on the church has been admitted to the Holy Family Hospital in Kurji in Patna.